By Garth Whewell I have heard the word darkness defined simply as the absence of light. Absolute darkness can only exist if you have an absolute absence of light. As soon as even the smallest amount of light is present, you no longer have absolute darkness. Absolute evil can only exist if there is […]
By Dan Lentz 1. Name a Christmas tradition your family practiced as you were growing up. Name a Christmas tradition your family currently practices. What Christmas tradition would you like to establish in the future? Read John 1:1-5, 14; Ephesians 5:1, 2, 6-14. 2. How has Jesus been a light around you […]
By Sam E. Stone Today’s text is especially appropriate as the world celebrates the birth of Christ. The Christmas story does not begin in Bethlehem. Before the world was created, God existed. The prologue of John’s Gospel affirms this. That life was the light of all mankind. Paul’s message to the church in Ephesus […]
By David Faust Job has asked God lots of questions. Now it’s time for God to ask the questions. After Job and his friends speculate at length about the meaning of life and suffering, the Lord speaks to Job. It’s the longest single speech attributed to God in all the Bible. God speaks “out […]
By Sam E. Stone When we become discouraged in today’s hostile religious environment, it helps to remember what it was like for the first-century Christians back when the church began. In pagan Ephesus, few people knew anything about Jesus Christ, even less about who or what a “Christian” was. There of all places, it […]
